"Huh? What are you smiling at?!" Manl's anger was instantly aroused when he saw Ian arching his lips.
"Oh, nothing," Ian calmly replied and shook his head. He did not appear one bit like the one in a disadvantage although surrounded on all sides.
"You think you are all that, don't you?! Well, guess what? Not so tough now, are we?" Manl stalked towards Ian aggressively with his underlings close behind.
Some of them were short while some of them were tall. Most of them were of average height. They all wore their uniforms, however, some of their neckties were undone or sloppily placed, some had their sleeves pulled up to their upper arms, some wore flip-flops and big-brand open-toe shoes, etc. None of them looked like proper, model students, that's for sure.
With menacing, threatening postures and unfriendly, dangerous expressions on their faces, they encircled Ian.
A dangerous vibe exuded out of every one of them. They were thirsty for blood, the craving long carved into their bodies from their years of victimizing their fellow students and classmates.
The muscles on their bodies they gained from working out and beating the guts out of others twitched and flexed as if to scare their new prey.
No one present had any nice feelings for Ian.
And in such a hostile environment with no allies whatsoever, Ian was like a prey facing the combined might of its numerous predators.
"Jealous?" Ian smiled gently as his eyes scanned around everyone.
"What?" Manl was taken aback by Ian's strange calmness that allowed him to even talk back in this situation. "Don't you understand what's about to happen to you?"
Manl slightly wavered at the sense of uncertainty that Ian made him feel.
"Boss, what's wrong?"
"Are you scared? No way!"
"Show him who's boss around here!"
"I want my girlfriend back!"
The voices of his underlings stopped Manl's further descent into doubt. All hesitation disappeared at once.
Aggression and violence returned to Manl's body as he stomped closer to Ian and grabbed him by his uniform collar.
The wind blew.
Ian's eyes widened, but not in shock or fear at the other's behavior.
'What a familiar feeling…'
Suddenly, Ian had a feeling that someone had once done the same thing to him before… but when? He didn't remember any such instances. His brother has always made sure he was well-protected, so protected that others cannot even touch his finger, so how could anyone possibly grab his collar and lift him up?
No matter how hard Ian tried to think back on it, his memories showed him no such incident… only, that piece of blank memory…
"You dare ignore me!?!"
Manl, upon seeing the distracted look on Ian's face, felt slighted as though the other person was looking down on him, that the other was thinking he's so insignificant that he didn't even have to bother with him.
This thought made Manl flare up as his nostrils flared and his eyes reddened in anger and humiliation.
Raising up his free hand clenched into a fist, in the midst of the jeering and cheering of his friends and lackeys, Manl aimed it at Ian's handsome face, wanting to ruin it so that no girls would be attracted to Ian with a destroyed face.
'Actually, that's a great idea! I'll ruin his face completely! I'll have my brothers and our lackeys destroy his face so thoroughly that not even plastic surgery can save it! Let's see if he can still seduce girls then!!' An evil plan was cooked up in Manl's brain and simmered as he snickered in wicked triumphant.
He could imagine it.
When Ian returns to class after lunch break…
Everyone will look at him in horror. The ugliness of his face will see the light and scare off all the disgusted girls and destroy his newfound popularity!
Drowned in his delusions, Manl failed to see the clarity that had come back to Ian's eyes.
"What do you think you're doing?"
"Huh?"
All sounds seemed to disappear all of a sudden, sucked into the deep purple vortex that was staring straight in his eyes.
Deep, dark, mysterious, yet charming.
Everything faded away within the overwhelming and all-embodying darkness.
Ian's eyes glowed.
The previous gentleness in his eyes dissipated like an illusion, replaced by twisted viciousness and cold.
The air hummed as the world trembled in the wake of his powers.
All feelings of gentleness and grace disappeared from Ian's body, instead a terrifying, dangerous aura exploded out of him.
It was twisted.
Vicious.
Ruthless.
Heartless.
All light was swallowed.
Huge waves of fear rolled over in the hearts of those present. The aura emitting from Ian caused their minds to become uncontrollably turbulent and chaotic as unknown fear and terror took root.
Manl was frozen in his spot, his stiff hand still had a firm grip on Ian's neck collars. He wanted to relax, but he couldn't.
Manl wanted to look away. Look anywhere else except for those alluring yet inhuman eyes, but his body wouldn't listen as the light in his eyes dimmed and his mind clouded over.
"Put me down."
A calm and seemingly gentle tone of voice that belied nothing of the viciousness and twistedness inside of the speaker.
Manl's arm uncontrollably lowered.
At this time, although the surrounding bullies were still affected by the dangerous aura Ian gave off, since it was not Ian's actual powers at work, they were still able to do as they will as they resisted the instinctual fear in their being.
"Manl, what are you doing?!" One of Manl's friends asked in disbelief when he saw Manl putting Ian down like the other had asked.
"Leader, you shouldn't be scared of a chicken-bodied guy like him! He's all bark and no bite! Just because he's somehow giving off this bad feeling doesn't mean we have to be afraid of him!"
"If others hear about this, wouldn't we become a joke?! What if the others also learn from him and start to bluff us to let them go?!"
"He's right! Manl, finish him off! Punch him! Just one punch! Give him one good punch and then we'll see if he's still so tough!!"
Manl's friends started cheering and encouraging Manl who was still stiff and whose body was no longer under his control once those deep purple eyes glowed at him.
Seeing that Manl was still standing there unmoving, one of his friends could not stand his cowardice any more. Isn't it just an aura?! What's the big deal?! As if this freshman year student representative can actually take all of them on by himself!
"Get out of my way!" He stomped up to Manl and pushed Manl out of the way.
Once Manl was removed from Ian's eyes, he found that he had regained control over his body.
Happiness took over him, but it only lasted for a second before he remembered what just happened.
Suddenly, he shivered as chills rose and devoured his entire body, dropping it in an ice cave.
Turning around, he wanted to warn his friend to be careful and to not look into Ian's eyes, but he was too late.
The other person had already gotten in front of Ian and started attacking Ian.
Mysteriously, he was unaffected by Ian's eyes.
Manl doubted himself for a second. Was he frozen in his spot really just of the aura released by Ian and not his eyes?
Anyways, Manl eagerly watched with his other friends as his vicious-looking friend started beating on Ian.
Or at least, tried to beat Ian.
For some reason, the friend found Ian dodging every single one of his punches and attacks, as though he had seen it coming from a mile away.
Angered, the friend forcibly increased his speed and gathered up all his strength into each punch, not slacking even a little, wanting to see the other person vomit blood.
Manl started getting anxious when he saw that his friend seemed to be having trouble with Ian. The ominous feeling he had just shaken off started coming back, it was warning him. Warning him to stop, to not continue to mess with Ian, or else he and all his friends won't be able to bear the consequences.
There was more to this freshman year student representative than meets the eye.
But like all prideful and angry people, Manl ignored it.
Getting agitated with the slow progress and with his heart heating up, Manl jumped into the fray and was elated to find that his body was still his own. At last, he completely dismissed all the bad feelings he had about the weak, gentle, and innocent-looking freshman.
The cheering and screaming delinquents saw that even with the involvement of Manl, Ian was still so lively, coming and going unscathed, and they all joined in as well.
Yet even with the sudden increase in opponents, Ian did not feel troubled at all. With swift and smooth movements, Ian agilely and deftly evaded all attacks and blocked every hit that came his way.
He took his time playing around with them.
Angered and frustrated at Ian's look of walking in a park, the delinquents' attacks grew fiercer.
Yet even then, they could not touch hide or hair of the young freshman.
One of the delinquents suddenly reached out his hand and wanted to pull a dirty move, grabbing at Ian's long purple hair fluttering in the air as his body moved.
It was in vain. The idea was good but reality was fleeting. His hand closed in on the thick and lustrous light purple hair, only to have it slip away before his fingers clenched completely.
He grasped nothing.
Shocked, the eyes of the delinquent who tried to play dirty widened. He had been in the best position to grab Ian's hair, but he had somehow missed.
But he wasn't the only one trying to play dirty tricks.
One delinquent even cleverly thought to spit his saliva at Ian.
Ian, with one graceful and aesthetic movement, sidestepped and the saliva ended up on the face of another delinquent who cursed the delinquent who spat on him.
Having had enough of this charade, Ian flipped up into the air and did a backflip, landing steadily on the outstretched arm of a buff delinquent who was the third son of a certain popular politician.
The first thought that came to the politician's third son was: he's so light!
And what came immediately after was shame and embarrassment. He couldn't believe that the other was using his arm as his foothold! Ian was blatantly looking down on him!
Furious, the politician's son swung his arm up, trying to make Ian fall off and injure himself.
But Ian just used the momentum as his spring and he soared into the air, distancing himself from the exhausted delinquents while he himself did not so much as even sweat.
Ian landed with a light tap.
Ten feet away were a bunch of panting delinquents trying to catch their breath after the intense period of activity.
Ian stared with calm eyes at the paper tiger delinquents.
The once notorious group of delinquents feared by the entire school was only but a struggling ant in front of this new student.
How laughable.
Ian laughed.
In all honesty, Ian had heard about these delinquents before. They caused trouble everywhere, but because of their parents, the school didn't dare to do anything with them. Additionally, since they themselves knew who to mess with and who not to mess with, their lawless days continued on with no one stopping them.
The special class was their favorite target, full of nerdy and poor students who had no one to complain to and no power to back them up.
To the rest of the school, the special class shining brightly to the outside world was just an outcast and a class of the poor students with no family backing, who had to work all their lives in order to make it in life. On the other hand, born with silver or gold spoons in their mouths, the rest of the school was filled with spoiled brats and pampered heirs who's noses were stuck high in the air.
Almost the entire school looked down on those weak nerds.
And this group of reckless and pretentious delinquents before Ian acted condescendingly to everyone in the special class more so than others.
Although the rest of the rich and powerful student body looked down on the kids in the special class, they at most laughed at them and ignored them, but this notorious group bullied a lot of the scholarship students, making their lives hell, only hoping to go to college and escape from this nightmare of a life.
The realities of life overshadowed their talent and made them learn endurance.
Of course, they never killed anyone, after all, if that were to happen, a black stain would appear on the school's reputation, which the principal cannot stand after everything generations of his predecessors had done.
Everyone turned a blind eye to the powerful kids' violence and the special classes' mistreatment as long as nothing 'serious' happens.
Well, something serious was about to happen.